Gods and Monsters
by Jordanna Morgan
Summary: On a visit to a different mortal realm, Yato and Yukine unwittingly step into a tragedy surrounding two brothers. Their quest to help will lead them to confront forces unlike anything they knew back in Japan—and forever change the fate of their new young friends.
1. Prologue-The Storm

**Title:** Gods and Monsters  
 **Author:** Jordanna Morgan  
 **Archive Rights:** Please request the author's consent.  
 **Rating/Warnings:** PG for fantasy violence.  
 **Characters:** Yato, Yukine, Edward and Alphonse Elric, various cameo appearances and guest villains.  
 **Setting:** Noragami/Fullmetal Alchemist crossover, taking place within the world of FMA.  
 **Summary:** On a visit to a different mortal realm, Yato and Yukine unwittingly step into a tragedy surrounding two brothers. Their quest to help will lead them to confront forces unlike anything they knew back in Japan—and forever change the fate of their new young friends.  
 **Disclaimer:** They belong to Adachitoka and Hiromu Arakawa. I'm just playing with them.  
 **Notes:** This story began as a single random idea: "After Al lost his body in the Elric brothers' human transmutation, what if his unattached soul was adopted as a Regalia by Yato?" I shared that thought with my chief enabler, Kristen Sharpe… and what followed thereafter was a deluge of _incredibly_ stimulating back-and-forth brainstorming, in which the concept soon expanded into a fully involved plot. Crossovers are something I tend to have difficulty with, but this one just seemed destined to come together.  
As I mentioned, a huge amount of credit for this story's development goes to Kristen. Thanks also to those who helped me out with important information on the kanji involved in naming Regalia.  
Lastly, if anyone is wondering, the title comes from an iconic quote in the film _The Bride of Frankenstein_. As a lifelong classic horror devotee, I found it a very apt description.

* * *

 **PROLOGUE**

* * *

"It was a dark and stormy night, and the sky was raging with phantoms—"

"Oh, Yatty!" Kofuku giggled loudly, hanging off of Yato's shoulder, with a familiarity that embarrassed everyone at the table _except_ the object of her attentions. "You tell the most _exciting_ stories!"

At Kofuku's other side, Daikoku looked disgusted. "Seriously? He's _one sentence_ into it… and that was literally the most clichéd opening line ever conceived."

"Now now, don't interrupt!"

Her Regalia strangled a growl between his teeth. "…I'm just waiting to hear the _explanation_ for all this. Other than Yato getting into a drunken argument with Lady Bishamon, that is."

"Hey, it was _Bishamon's_ fault!" Yato protested indignantly. "She was kind of drunk _too_ , you know. And after she started bragging about how she's made a name for herself in _three_ different mortal realms—"

"Then _you_ got the idea that people in another realm might _appreciate_ you better," Yukine muttered from the end of the table, narrow-eyed. "At which point, we were officially doomed."

Before Yato could reprove his own Regalia, Kofuku tugged on his arm like an eager child. "Come on, just get back to the story!"

Casting a broad-spectrum glare around the table to warn against any further interruptions, the god of calamity sat back loftily. After a pointed moment of silence, he cleared his throat and continued.

"As I was _saying_ , it was a dark and stormy night…"

* * *

 **CHAPTER I: THE STORM**

* * *

"Yukine? Hey, Yukine! Where are you, buddy… I've got a feeling I'm gonna need you in a hurry here!"

Raising a hand to brush back his sodden bangs, Yato peered into the cold, stinging rain, and tried to get his bearings. Under pouring clouds, grassy hills and fields were illuminated only by flashes of lightning… but he was much more disturbed by the one other visible light. In the near distance, there was an unearthly glow that blazed from every window of a tall house beside an oak tree.

The storm was not merely a meteorological one. The thicker darkness swirling above the house was not formed of clouds alone. Yato could see the spectral, multi-hued shapes of phantoms twisting through the sky, snaking over the roof, and he knew something terrible was taking place there to attract such a swarm.

He also knew it would be only a matter of minutes until the creatures began to smell _him_ —and his Regalia was nowhere in sight.

Pelting across the slick wet grass toward a nearby dirt road, he mentally cursed Bishamon. She'd probably plotted the whole thing on purpose, just to get rid of him. He certainly never should have _trusted_ her when she claimed this particular mortal realm was underpopulated with gods, and might welcome the services of one as eager to please (or in her words, as _impoverished_ ) as Yato.

Just a little workman's holiday, he'd insisted over Yukine's protests. Just long enough to make some quick cash to put toward his future shrine. Besides, even if Bishamon still harbored any lingering embers of a grudge, Kazuma would never let his mistress pull a fast one on Yato… would he?

When Yato got back to Japan, he was going to slug that guy.

… _If_ he got back to Japan.

"Yukine! Come, Sekki!"

His calls remained unheeded; and as the light in the windows of the house began to fade, the phantoms also began to spread farther from its immediate vicinity. They glided, slithered, and oozed, their unholy murmurings growing louder.

Seemingly out of nowhere, a phantom thudded to the earth in Yato's path. Blue-gray in color and gleaming faintly like metal, it was the size of a horse, and it even resembled a childish attempt to fashion that animal's shape. Psychically, it seethed with emotions of grief and abandonment, a wave of very human pain that felt thick and choking like smoke in Yato's chest.

Gulping down a yelp of alarm, the unarmed god turned and bounded in the opposite direction. So much for reaching the road.

" _Yukine_!"

More phantoms were moving towards Yato. This was not good. Without his Regalia, if he couldn't escape or find cover, there was no way he could last long against the horde of malignant creatures.

And then it happened.

Beyond the luminous varicolored blurs of the phantoms, he glimpsed one tiny, lone spark of pure whiteness. It was clinging to a windowsill of the house over which the storm was centered… and as he reached out to it mentally, he felt the minute flame-flicker of a mortal spirit.

 _So young… Could it be…?_

Uncomfortably close behind him, a phantom roared, and Yato decided he was out of options.

Stretching out a hand that streamed with chilled rain, he began to trace the complex lines of a name into the lightning-ripped air.

" _Spirit, you are lost and adrift. You have nowhere to go and nowhere to return to—thus I grant you a place to belong. My name is Yato. Bearing two names, you shall remain here. With these names I make thee my servant. With these names, I use my life to make thee a Regalia fit to be wielded by a god. Thou art Ame, as Regalia Uki. Come, Uki!_ "

The glowing kanji arced forward, enveloping the fragile mote of the uncorrupted spirit, and a new streak of lightning leaped into Yato's waiting hand. He gasped at the unexpected surge of power within that young, fleeting life, as a flood of images swept through his mind.

Two boys, hardly old enough to walk, yet with their heads bent over a book. A tall, bearded man standing in a doorway. Tears of a little girl. A pale hand falling open, releasing the smaller ones clutched within it. White lilies on a gravestone. An arcane symbol drawn upon a floor.

Pain. So much… _so much pain_.

When Yato fell to his knees, he hit the ground with a clatter of metal.

The myriad icy slaps of raindrops against his skin had ceased. Releasing a shuddering breath that echoed strangely, he opened his eyes to a slightly reduced field of vision—and found his entire body sheathed in steel.

 _A suit of armor…?_

Before he could think or feel anything else, something collided squarely in the middle of his back, pitching him forward. He grunted, rolled, and stumbled to his feet, reminded that he still had urgent business to attend to. The phantoms were closing in on all sides—only further incensed by the shell that had suddenly materialized around their intended prey.

With a roar of his own, Yato lunged. Phantoms snapped and tore at him; but the strikes were repelled by the armor's surface, almost as easily as the raindrops flowed off of it. A sweep of his arm raked sharp-edged steel fins across the torso of a smaller phantom, and its gelatinous body shattered, disintegrating in a burst of light.

On the outside, the weight of the armor felt like nothing at all… but it was on the _inside_ that Yato felt an unbearable heaviness.

Something was wrong, but he couldn't think about that just yet.

As he slashed the semi-bladed vambrace against another encroaching monster, a voice broke through their otherworldly moans and screeches. It was young, bewildered, breathlessly frantic—and familiar.

"Yato! Is… is that _you_?"

Yukine's voice. Without taking time for pleasantries or explanations, Yato called his Exemplar to him. Instantly he felt the solidness of a blade in his leather-clad hand; and after that, it was all quickly finished. Unbelievably agile within the armor, he leaped from the ground to the tree to the roof of the house, hacking phantoms into tiny pieces.

For a few moments, he was almost out of his senses, lost somewhere in the infinitesimal space between extremes of agony and joy. There was a buzz in his head, a throb in his chest, the simultaneously elating and anguishing pull upon his lifeforce by a new _presence_ —and above all else, a dizzying swirl of confusion from _both_ of the spirits now tied to him.

When there were no more phantoms left, he fell heavily back to earth. Sprawled in the grass, he just _breathed_ , and tried to contain the boiling sea of memory-impressions that had spilled into him from his new Regalia.

At length the soul-voice of Yukine reached him, faint and quivering. " _Yato_ …"

" _Revert_ ," the god whispered, and the steel that surrounded him glimmered away, allowing the hard rain to mingle with the other moisture on his face.

Yato felt utterly spent in body and soul, but the gasp Yukine let out caused him to sit up quickly. He saw his Exemplar, now returned to human form, staring at what appeared to be a smaller and younger boy: a boy who suddenly swayed and crumpled to the ground, prostrated by violent shudders of shock. That wasn't quite normal for a newly named Regalia, but _nothing_ about this was really normal at all.

Wide-eyed, Yukine looked up at his master. "Yato, what is this… _Who_ is this?"

"His name is Amane," said Yato, softly and simply. He knew Yukine would understand the implications of that name clearly enough.

" _What_? You mean he's…?" Yukine looked from Yato to Amane and back again—with a growing expression of indignant outrage that the god could have expected, if only he wasn't so shaken himself. "You mean to tell me we're just _visiting_ a different realm, and the _first thing_ you do is grab a local spirit as another Regalia? What were you _thinking_? How are the gods of _this_ world gonna react to some foreign god coming along and messing with their mortals?"

The scathing reproach managed to stir Yato's usual mettle. He jerked to his feet. "Well, _excuse_ me, but I didn't have much of a choice—since my Exemplar up and _disappeared_ on me in the middle of a storm!"

"That's not my fault! We must have been separated somehow when we landed here!"

Waving a hand brusquely at Yukine to quiet him, Yato stepped closer to the stunned and shivering Amane.

It was painful just to look upon him. The human form this spirit manifested could not have been more than ten years old. With his head bowed, little of his face could be seen. Already he was sopping wet, his dark gold hair dripping, his shirt and trousers clinging to his body.

Those garments would not be considered proper burial clothes in any culture Yato was aware of. They looked much more like simple articles of everyday wear. That would mean the boy had been given no funeral… and coupled with the fact that Yato had found his spirit in a place where something bad was very _actively_ happening…

Yato looked up sharply, toward the darkened house—just as Amane flinched and turned his head in the same direction.

" _Ed_ …"

Wild-eyed, he staggered to his feet. Powerful waves of panic and terror began rolling off him, twisting into Yato's being like a knife… and then, he erupted in a bloodcurdling scream.

" _Brother_!"

He set off running toward the front door of the house. With a surprised noise, Yukine moved to follow—but the older Regalia was halted when his master seized his shoulder. Not to stop him, but to lean heavily on him by necessity, as Yato's legs nearly buckled.

"Yato!" Yukine gasped, automatically putting an arm around the god to steady him.

"This fear… It's not normal, something is wrong…" Yato jerked his head stiffly toward the house. "Come on. We've gotta go after him!"

As quickly as he could, Yato stumbled up to the house, letting himself lean on Yukine for only a few moments before he marshaled his strength and pulled away. Linked to his own life now, Amane's pain—a tempest of emotions that should not even have existed at that moment—felt as if it was carving into the deepest depths of him.

" _How_?" Yukine breathed, as they reached the front doorway through which Amane had already vanished. "He said—!"

"He _remembers_."

In Yukine's trembling gasp of shock, there was a tiny sliver of something else that further cleaved Yato's heart. The ache that pulsed through his chest for one second was not a part of Amane's distress; but before Yukine could speak, all other concerns were swept aside by the animal-like scream that drifted from the back of the house.

They followed the cry to a candle-lit study, where they found a scene of hellish horror awaiting them.

Nearest the door lay a lifeless and twisted… _thing_ , vaguely human in its parts, but those parts were jumbled together in all the wrong places. A nearly-skeletal hand had fallen outstretched, like a dying entreaty. The distorted, gaping face that stared vacantly up to the ceiling was female, its expression permanently frozen in torment when whatever life it once possessed had slipped away. What should have appeared as a monster somehow echoed only of tragedy.

Beyond that abomination, an intricate chalked circle took up much of the stone floor, its circumference filled with eldritch lines and symbols. It was the same thing Yato had seen in Amane's memories; but now the white was splashed with copious amounts of red, and the largest puddle was still spreading outward from a point by the far wall.

There, Amane was kneeling in the blood. His small, shaking frame was bent over another human figure, no larger than himself… but its mass was reduced to even less than his own by the horrific fact of what was _missing_. Where the blond-haired boy's right arm and left leg should be, there were only ragged, bleeding stumps of exposed flesh and bone.

" _Brother_!" Amane shrieked again, clutching the other to his chest. " _No_! It's not… You _can't_ —!"

If the grief, guilt, and terror pouring out of Amane went on a second longer, Yato felt as if he would die himself.

Stumbling forward half-blindly, he jerked a sheet from some disused piece of furniture, and fell to one knee beside the pair. He pulled the other child out of Amane's arms, ignoring his new Regalia's small cry of half-protest, and searched for a pulse in the neck.

The boy was alive, but just barely. Yato quickly set to work, tearing strips from the sheet for tourniquets and bandages. At once he was joined by Yukine, as the faithful Exemplar caught on.

Gently but firmly forced to one side, Amane curled into a sobbing, whimpering ball—but the very presence of _someone_ to help seemed to calm him at least a fraction. Although Yato still felt as if something inside him was tearing open, the soul-pain backed off a tiny bit.

"We've gotta find help," he said to Yukine, carefully gathering the boy's limp and too-light body, after they had stabilized him as well as they could. "A doctor or a neighbor, or _something_ —but I didn't see where any other houses were nearby—"

"The Rockbells."

That whispered suggestion came from Amane. The young spirit lurched to his feet, his tear-streaked face clearing slightly as he was confronted by a need he could answer. Underneath the confusion, fear, and terrible self-blame, his face and his soul were beginning to reflect the first spark of a desperate determination.

" _This way_!" he blurted imperatively, and turned to run out of the house.


	2. Bonds

**Title:** Gods and Monsters  
 **Author:** Jordanna Morgan  
 **Archive Rights:** Please request the author's consent.  
 **Rating/Warnings:** PG for fantasy violence.  
 **Characters:** Yato, Yukine, Edward and Alphonse Elric, various cameo appearances and guest villains.  
 **Setting:** Noragami/Fullmetal Alchemist crossover, taking place within the world of FMA.  
 **Summary:** On a visit to a different mortal realm, Yato and Yukine unwittingly step into a tragedy surrounding two brothers. Their quest to help will lead them to confront forces unlike anything they knew back in Japan—and forever change the fate of their new young friends.  
 **Disclaimer:** They belong to Adachitoka and Hiromu Arakawa. I'm just playing with them.

* * *

 **CHAPTER II: BONDS**

* * *

Yukine took the wounded boy from the arms of his weakened master, and together they followed Amane out into the downpour. He led them across open grass, more or less parallel to the road, until they reached a house below the hill. A wooden sign hung outside it. The lettering was a language foreign to Yato, but a small effort of focus by the god caused the words to resolve into Japanese in his sight—an effect that he had worked already upon Amane's speech, and which also extended to Yukine as his Regalia. Thus translated, the sign read _Rockbell Automail_.

Yato was just quick enough to spring onto the porch and seize Amane's shoulder before he could pound on the door.

"Wait, Ama— _kid_ ," he amended awkwardly. Once granted a name, a Regalia would respond to it instinctively, but Amane's impossibly intact memories could mean he still knew _himself_ by his mortal name. When Yato considered that, he couldn't quite bring himself to speak the new name by which he gained power over the child. He felt wary and somehow unjustified in asserting his claim to a spirit that was not severed from its past.

Amane whined a sharp protest and tried to pull away, but Yato held firm as Yukine laid the other boy on the doorstep. The Exemplar knocked loudly, and after a few moments, a blonde young girl opened the door. She too was now familiar to Yato, from his glimpse into Amane's mind.

For a few seconds, the girl did not see the torn and bloodied figure at her feet. Then she looked down… and understandably, she screamed.

Uttering a heartbroken sound, Amane wrenched his arm from Yato's grip. " _I'm sorry_ , Winry! We only wanted—but we were… _Please_! Please save him— _don't let Brother die_!"

To both Yato and Yukine, it was no surprise that the girl did not notice or respond to Amane; but the boy's face twisted in astonished distress. As Winry turned and shouted hysterically for her grandmother, he called her name again, to no avail.

"Winry! It's _me_! Don't you _see_ me? Why aren't…?"

His words trailed off. Fresh tears brimmed, and he turned to look up at Yato, with some trace of dawning comprehension. The look in his eyes was every bit as painful as the bewildered fear pouring out of him.

"…What's happened to _me_?"

With that trembling whisper, it all became more than Yato could endure. He dropped to his knees and put his arms around Amane's shoulders, hugging him—trying to offer the terrified little boy even one shred of comfort that would ease the hurt, for _both_ of their sakes.

"It's gonna be alright," he murmured, and although he knew he was probably lying, it was all he could say. "We're gonna figure this out, and explain _everything_. But right now… be with your brother."

Shivering, Amane pulled away from Yato, and slowly sank down beside his brother's mangled form. He leaned his head against the older boy's, and whispered to him, even if he thought those words too would be unheard.

With Amane's head bowed, from where Yato stood, he could see his mark of mastery for the first time. The name he granted had appeared on the nape of the boy's neck, peeking out from beneath the collar of his shirt. It offered another troubling clue to the wrongness of the situation: where the kanji brands of other Regalia showed on their bodies in a fairly natural brown hue, this one blazed scarlet, a red that was distinct even under the yellowed porchlight. In his entire existence, Yato had never seen a name take on such a color before.

Perhaps it was simply the norm in this unfamiliar realm… or perhaps it was an ominous warning that the name had been bestowed by a foreign god.

He was also given second thoughts about a certain color on his own person. For one of the few times in his life, he found himself regretting his habit of wearing black. Depending on the mythology of this realm, Amane might have been starting to think the hapless god was some kind of Grim Reaper, arrived on the scene of a deadly tragedy to take his soul away to the afterlife.

…Although, in this case, Yato acknowledged that idea might not have been so very far from the truth.

When Winry and her grandmother collected the half-dead child from their doorstep, only then did Amane withdraw from him, stiffly silent now in the acceptance that he was invisible to the mortals. The three unseen beings followed the two women and their burden into the house. Yato and Yukine kept their distance, watching the tearful cleaning and bandaging of gaping wounds, the prick of needles as Winry offered her veins for an urgently-needed blood transfusion. Amane hovered close, speaking softly to his brother all the while, even daring to caress a deathly-pale cheek once or twice.

Little by little, Yato could feel Amane's anxiety burning down into a dull, exhausted numbness. It ached, but at least it was not the sharp pain of before. Still, he knew it would be only a short respite, before the explanations he owed would tear open the grief all over again.

At length Yukine took a step closer to Yato. There was no danger of disturbing the mortals in the room, but he lowered his voice to a level that Amane would not hear.

" _How_ , Yato? How does Amane _remember_ who he was?"

And that was exactly the _second_ -to-last question the errant god wanted to deal with right now. Piecing together Amane's memories, he was just starting to get a better picture of what was really happening here—but that was nothing he could discuss with his Exemplar.

As with all Regalia, Yukine could not be allowed to know that Yato had seen inside a spirit's mind upon naming it. If Yukine discovered that, he could easily conclude that the same was true in his case. He could suspect Yato knew something of _his_ past—and if the very idea got into his head, it could destroy him. For all he had painfully learned about the need for a Regalia to let go of the mortal world, the curiosity alone could break him, tempting him into doubt and anger until he became corrupted.

With a wincing smile, Yato drew the breath for a casual dismissal that he knew would not satisfy Yukine… but he was interrupted by a soft cry of startlement from Amane.

The distraction only seemed merciful for as long as it took Yato to turn his head.

Across the room, Amane appeared to have taken an alarmed step backward, only to unbalance and fall onto his rump. Now he was on the floor, staring up at the bed, as something _moved_ around his brother's limp and ravaged form.

Slowly, a double-image of the boy stirred and separated itself from the physical body; but _this_ one still possessed four completely intact limbs, and it was dressed in unsullied duplicates of the bloody clothes the women had long since cut away. Like someone waking from a deep sleep, it blinked, stretched, and rolled over—promptly rolling _out_ of the narrow bed, and spilling onto the floor.

" _Oof_!"

Amane whimpered. Yato and Yukine stared. The two mortal women remained oblivious, sitting at the other side of the bed, as they continued to perform the transfusion of blood—into a suddenly _un-souled_ body.

Yato saw the long, slightly luminous appendage trailing out behind the boy on the rug: semi-transparent, turquoise in color, bristled like the tail of a cat. Only then did it occur to him that letting Amane linger over his brother may not have been the wisest idea. Because when a severely traumatized mortal soul was close enough to death to sense Far Shore beings, and could hear a spirit calling to it…

"A… Al?"

…It might sometimes _answer_ that call.

Yukine made a choked sound. "No way… He's like Hiyori?"

Yato wanted to bury his face in his hand, but he couldn't quite tear himself away from what was happening.

" _Al_ …" With wide and shining golden eyes, the newly manifested half-phantom crawled toward the rain-drenched and bloodstained Amane. For his part, Amane _almost_ looked tempted to flinch away from this "ghost" of his brother that had emerged from the crippled body. However, he remained frozen in shock and uncertainty until that ghost quite tangibly fell on top of him, engulfing him in a desperate full-body hug.

"Al, it's you… I—I thought… It _took_ you, and I…"

The half-phantom boy dissolved into quiet sobs, pressing his face to the crook of Amane's neck. Gingerly Amane wrapped his arms around his brother, returning the embrace—but his gaze flicked up to Yato, with a frightened question in his eyes.

It was heartbreakingly clear. The child was asking if they were _both_ dead now: if he had just seen his brother die like himself.

…Complicated. It was all going to be so very _complicated_.

For the moment, Yato chose to remain absolutely still and silent, to confirm or deny nothing. In the midst of all this baffling horror, he wanted to let these siblings have whatever moment of peace they could.

Amane's face fell; perhaps he took the lack of response as affirmation that he and his brother had both departed the land of the living. Even so, he merely breathed a deep sigh and bowed his head over Brother's shoulder, holding him tightly. For some reason, he was much calmer than he had been just a few minutes before. His primary emotion was now a kind of sad resignation that created its own pangs, but it was preferable to the earlier turmoil.

They stayed that way for a while. Yukine started to speak once, but Yato hushed him. The brothers' reunion was only interrupted by the voice of the girl's grandmother, when at last she declared that Winry had given up enough blood for one night.

It seemed the half-phantom hadn't noticed the other mortals in the room, or what place they were in, or anything else except Amane. When the old woman spoke, he turned to look up in surprise. Only then did he see the women, grimly at work on their small patient.

From where he sat, he must not have had a clear view of that patient's face. With a puzzled noise, he released Amane and stood up… and only _then_ did he recognize that the mutilated body on the bed was his own.

" _What_ —?"

" _Brother_." Amane was suddenly on his feet, his arms around the other boy, hugging him tighter than before—and at the same time, turning him away from the shocking sight with a surprising forcefulness. He shook his head against the other's shoulder. "Don't look, Brother. I think… I think we're—"

"No," Yato interrupted on impulse, firmly and clearly. "You're not _quite_ dead yet—not _either_ of you."

Yukine's astonishment at those words was nearly as much of a gut-punch to Yato as Amane's was. He spared half a second to cast a reproving scowl at his Exemplar, and was summarily ignored.

Meanwhile, with his attention drawn to the presence of god and Regalia for the first time, the boy Amane had called _Ed_ stood staring at the two unfamiliar beings. Still draped around Amane, his arms tensed and tightened protectively.

"Who are _you_? What's going on? What do you mean— _not dead_?"

"…Yeah, that's gonna take a little explaining." Yato grimaced at the medical procedure being carried out upon the child's empty body, and then at his own clothing—wet and bloodstained like those of _both_ his Regalia. He scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. "Look, do you mind if we go somewhere and change these clothes first? I mean, it's not like _any_ of us is really in danger of catching a cold right now, but—"

" _Tell us_!" Ed roared, pulling away from Amane to plant his feet and raise his fists, in a posture of threatening demand.

"Sheesh. That's kinda rude, you know—considering _you're_ the one who got us all _into_ the situation we're in now." Seeing the boy's face turn pale, Yato raised an eyebrow. "I see you have an idea what I'm talking about."

Gaping, Ed pushed Amane farther behind him, as if to shield him. Behind his mask of angry impatience, unmistakable fear glimmered in his eyes.

"You're not—you _can't_ be from… from _that place_ …!"

Yato had no idea what the boy was referring to. Still, if he had managed to strike a degree of intimidation into him, he intended to use it. Before he could sort out the events that followed his arrival, he needed to backtrack, and establish just what the brothers had done earlier that night. Not because he didn't know, having gleaned enough facts already from Amane's memories—but because he could not allow Yukine to realize that he _did_ know.

Drawing himself to his full height, he took on a more gravely stern demeanor, and frowned down at Ed.

"You did something terrible, didn't you, kid? I'm sure you didn't mean for anyone to get hurt… but it was still _wrong_. And now your brother is paying for it with you. Now maybe, just maybe, there's a chance I can help—but only if you _confess_ what you've done."

Eyes widening, Ed spluttered for a second, still looking more angry than contrite; but Amane suddenly broke into tears. He shoved past Ed's arm and fell to his knees at Yato's feet, crumpling in abject repentance.

"We're _sorry_! We didn't _know_ it would… All we ever wanted was… _was to bring our mother back_!"

That was the admission Yato was looking for. It certainly revealed enough to wring a horrified gasp from Yukine beside him; but just to make things clear for the revelations to come, the god decided to tease out just one more detail from the vague facts he was aware of.

"And how did you try to do that?"

"With _forbidden_ alchemy. With…" A shudder swept through Amane's bowed shoulders. "With _human transmutation_."

Yes, that would do for the present.

Ed stepped forward to kneel beside Amane, wrapping an arm around the younger boy's shoulders. His expression was still angry, but this time the sentiment was turned entirely inward, as his eyes brimmed with moisture.

" _It wasn't your fault_ , Al. It was mine— _all_ mine. I came up with the plan, and I pushed _you_ into it—and now, we…"

He stumbled to a halt, and finally glanced up at Yato. The eye contact was grudging, but at last his face showed more confusion than distrust and defensiveness.

 _Now… what?_

Yato sighed deeply. Since the brothers' strange reunion, the tight ball of Amane's grief and fear in his chest had relaxed, but it was still an ache to the core of his being—and there was that annoying, needling sense of Yukine's impatient bewilderment, too. All the god really wanted at the moment was to sleep off this entire night, and try to tackle the problem fresh in the morning. However, he knew things weren't going to get any better until he at least provided enough answers to soothe Amane's mind. The new Regalia's secondhand anxiety wouldn't have _let_ him sleep, anyway.

"Yeah, you really screwed up." _Except maybe you weren't the_ only _ones…_ Yato refused to flinch as Ed's glare sharpened upon him from under long blond bangs. "In case you hadn't noticed, _your_ body may be over there—but you brother's _isn't_."

Ed's breath caught, a darker shade of wariness overtaking the confused agitation on his face. He automatically swept a glance over the room before he shifted back to Amane. Gripping the younger boy's shoulders possessively, he gave Yato a vehement head shake.

"Of _course_ he's not over there! He's—!"

"I'm afraid _that_ isn't really his body, any more than the form you're walking around in now is _yours_." Yato slouched against a bureau, resting his chin on his hand. "This _forbidden alchemy_ you used. If you wanted to bring a person back from the dead, I'm guessing you tried to create a new body for them… but from the looks of things, that didn't quite cut it."

Amane gasped, turning to gaze at the maimed physical shell of his brother.

"Then… if the Equivalent Exchange took Ed's arm and leg… Then _my_ body is—"

"It's gone. Or at least, it's wherever Ed's arm and leg are now." Yato winced. "I've gotta be honest: I'm kind of a tourist here, so I don't exactly know how this alchemy stuff of yours works. But yeah. Seems like a pretty good assumption, anyway."

Once again, Ed bristled, clinging all the tighter to Amane. "What are you _talking_ about? If Al's body is _gone_ , how is he right _here_? Why would he not just be…" A sudden uncertainty flickered in his eyes. " _Dead_?"

"Well, I think that's the general idea of what was _supposed_ to happen—if _I_ hadn't butted in." Yato grinned, more feebly than he intended. "It's kind of a bad habit of mine. You see… I'm a god."

The younger sibling goggled. The elder's only reaction was to look disgusted.

"Hey, it's true. The name's Yato, by the way. And I'm not actually a god of your world, either, which is why all this alchemy business is new to me—but I found out the hard way that _some_ things still work the same here. All those bad vibes you stirred up with that stunt of yours drew a storm of phantoms. …Uh, it's complicated, but for now let's just say those are monsters spawned from negative human feelings. Anyway, I had the stupid luck to land right in the middle of it, and my Regalia was AWOL." He jerked a thumb at the scowling Yukine. "So I was in pretty dire need of a way to protect myself."

Ed merely blinked, staring in speechless incomprehension at what must have sounded to him like a deluge of fevered nonsense. Yato took the opportunity to focus his gaze on Amane, gentling his voice.

"Now, here's the part that matters to you. With your body lost, I'd say you _would_ have died for real, or at the very least been left adrift. Only I ended up interfering, because… well, I really, _really_ needed your soul right about then. Apparently I caught it just in time. And I…" He cleared his throat, shooting an uneasy glance at the Regalia's protective brother before he concluded.

"I may have sort of… turned your soul into a divine weapon."

" _What_?" Ed shrieked.

"There's no 'sort of' _about_ it," Yukine muttered, folding his arms irritably.

As for Amane, he said nothing. He stood frozen, his wide brown eyes staring up at Yato… or rather, staring past him, at the sudden vision of something he had lost in the crisis of Ed's brutal wounds.

"…I _remember_ ," he breathed. Tears spilled down his cheeks as he looked up at Ed. "Brother. I remember—so much _pain_ , and after that… there was just _nothing_. But then somehow, I was outside in our front yard, and…"

The boy's eyebrows shot up. He turned to point emphatically at Yato.

"And he was _inside_ me!"

… _Oh, crap._

Yato's next awareness was of being sprawled on his back, arms raised to deflect the savage pummeling punches from a screaming, cursing half-phantom boy who would have looked like an insane wildcat even _without_ a tail.

Somewhere on the sidelines, over Amane's shrill protests, he could hear Yukine howling with laughter.

"No, wait… _Ngh_ … That's _not_ what he meant! _Ow_!… Could you have phrased that any _worse_? All he _meant_ was… Ah, screw it!— _Come, Uki_!"

Amane's new form responded instantly to the call of the god from which it stemmed, leaving him time for nothing but a soft gasp. A heartbeat later, Yato was engulfed by a blur of light that hardened into gleaming steel—forming a barrier between himself and his diminutive assailant.

Of course, that barrier also just happened to be the very brother Ed thought he was coming to the defense of.

Now glimpsed through the eye slits of a helmet, the poleaxed look on Ed's face just might have been worth the whole stupid misunderstanding.

" _Whoa_ …" Amane's small voice resonated through the armor, sounding both awed and remarkably unafraid. " _This is… me_?"

Yato closed his eyes and sighed.

"Yeah. Congratulations, kid. You've become a Regalia: the weapon of a god."


End file.
